


A Light in the Dark

by rxpunzels



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Comedian Richie Tozier, Epistolary Romance, Grief/Mourning, Lighthouse Keeper Eddie Kaspbrak, Loneliness, Long Distance AU, Love Letters, M/M, seriously eddie is the loneliest man in the whole world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:48:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23995531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rxpunzels/pseuds/rxpunzels
Summary: Just off the coast of Maine stands Nubble Lighthouse. New England's most photographed lighthouse and home to the world's loneliest man, Eddie Kaspbrak. But things get a little less lonely for him when a letter from California arrives.Dear Mr Lighthouse Man,it had read.Can you send me some photographs of birds?
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 17
Kudos: 126





	A Light in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> It's the lighthouse keeper Eddie AU I've been dreaming of writing for forever! I apologise to the people of Maine for this, as Nubble is a real lighthouse and I sincerely hope that nobody minds me borrowing it for this little love story.

“I was beginning to think we wouldn’t see you today,” Kay said, smiling brightly as soon as Eddie walked through the door.

The sunlight streaming through the window of the little post office was dimming a little. He’d arrived later than usual.

“Waters are choppy today,” Eddie said, tugging his gloves off and stretching his fingers. Despite the rich lamb-wool, his skin was still bitten red from the cold, the chill of October settling in and chasing itself up his bones. He winced as he curled his fingers back in.

Just as he was about to ask Kay whether or not anything had arrived for him, a customary question if anything; she knew fine well that’s why he was here, the beads draping over the open doorway that lead to the back of the shop began rattling and Marley burst through them.

“Scout’s not with me,” Eddie told her, cutting off her question with a wry smile. The teenager’s whole frame wilted and she sulkily propped her elbows up on the counter, smushing her cheeks in her palms.

“Then what’s the point of you being here?” she managed to ask through her pout.

“Behave!” Kay scolded her, smacking her cousin on the back of the head with a stack of empty envelopes. She ignored Marley’s dramatic griping in favour of giving Eddie a sly wink. “We know why he’s here.”

He stopped picking at loose threads on his gloves for long enough to shoot her a glare.

“He’s come looking for his love letters!” Marley sang, stretching cat-like across the counter with a smug smile on her face. Eddie playfully swiped at her nose with a glove.

“They’re not—”

“Not love letters,” Kay and Marley both chimed in.

Not bothering to dignify that with an answer, Eddie simply rolled his eyes. If his face happened to be red, he could blame that on the winter wind sending a pinching chill ahead of itself to warn that it was on its way. The weeds around his house were already beginning to crystallise in the early hours of the morning and it wouldn’t be long until his whole front lawn was playing host to the usual carpet of frost. As much as it played havoc with the lock on the garden gates, Eddie couldn’t lie and say that the forthcoming November mist and subsequent ice weren’t some of his favourite seasonal visitors.

They brought with them less tourists, along with well-timed excuses for him to keep himself to himself.

“Anyway, you’ve got mail,” Kay told him, apparently deciding it would be in her best interest to put him out of his misery.

Something inflated in Eddie’s chest and his boots carried him across the post office floor so he could take the letter Kay held out to him.

It was ridiculous really, the shiver of anticipation that passed through him as soon as his fingers got hold of the envelope, brown with two stamps and familiar handwriting scrawling out the address on the front.

Written in red marker, it read:

_Eddie Kaspbrak_

_Nubble Lighthouse_

_Sohier Park Road_

_York_

_ME 03909_

“Thanks, Kay,” he mumbled, eyes still transfixed on the envelope. As an absent afterthought, he added, “Anything else?” It was important for him to play it cool. Acting like he cared about any additional mail would do that, he figured.

“Yeah, city council sent a postcard saying they’re repurposing Nubble,” Marley piped up.

“That’s cool,” he murmured. Wait, what? He jerked his head up and caught Marley’s even smile, matching it with a put-upon scowl of his own.

“Very funny.”

“Gullible idiot.”

“Little shit.”

“Lovesick ass.”

“Children, please!” Kay threw up her hands. She gently backhanded Marley’s shoulder. “You were supposed to be checking the inventory.”

“I thought Eddie had brought Scout, but all he dragged in here was his sorry ass to get his sappy letter.” Marley pushed herself back from the counter and stuck her tongue out at Eddie.

He returned the gesture to be polite and Kay quirked an eyebrow at him. “Don’t encourage her.”

“Like she needs any encouragement,” he said as Marley blew an exaggerated kiss to Eddie and yelled her goodbyes as Kay nudged her back through the shop.

Turning back to Eddie, Kay propped a hand on her hip and he knew that an invitation was on its way. Apprehension stirred in his stomach, but he wasn’t quick enough to say anything before she opened her mouth.

“Either you can get your ass out of my post office so I can finally lock up, or you can stay put and come home and grab dinner with us,” she said. There was a knowing glint in her eyes. She’d deliberately given Eddie an out which she knew that he was going to take but her typical McCall hospitality wasn’t going to let him leave before he knew he was welcome at her little two-bedroom further down the road.

It wasn’t as if he was horribly put off by the idea. There had been many a night that passed by with Eddie curled up beneath a blanket on Kay’s sofa, her gentle snoring sounding from one room while the muffled noise of Marley’s sitcoms escaped from the other.

That had all been before though.

Not before the letters. No, if anything, the letters had been the reason he frequented the post office more. They’d given him an excuse to give Kay and Marley a wobbly smile the first time he’d ventured back into the little shop, to tell them “I’d like to send this first class and buy a Twix please.” as well as, “I’m sorry.”

They hadn’t changed everything though, and he still tended to fall back into his usual ways. He jammed the envelope under his arm so he could busy himself with tugging his gloves back on.

“Thanks, Kay, but I should be getting back. It’s dark too early these days and I can’t make it over the water like that.”

“You could always stay.” Kay’s voice was always kind and never pressing, but it was usually peppered by the slightest hint of desperation that made the knife laced in guilt twist that little bit further into his gut. He worried her. He didn’t want to, but he did, and he was taking no steps to stop her concern from growing.

“I can’t stay. I’ve left Scout at home.” A solid excuse that she surely couldn’t argue with.

Her eyebrows lowered ever so slightly, drawing an inch or two nearer to each other. “Is that why you left her at home instead of bringing her?”

The tips of Eddie’s ears went pink. “Water was too choppy.” At least he’d mentioned that before. “She couldn’t come on the boat today.”

His reply caught in the air and he let it hang there. He wouldn’t be the one to reel it back in like an old fishing line. Kay’s gaze was always unnervingly steady and he did everything he could to avoid looking at it. Eventually, she gave him a warm smile.

“Well, you know you’re always welcome.”

He tried to keep his sigh of relief subtle and inconspicuous. It wouldn’t do to have Kay feel bad about making him sweat. She’d never failed to be a comfort to him, and if he couldn’t repay her through the simple means of accepting her offer of a hot dinner that didn’t come from a can, then that was solely on him.

“Next time,” he said. It wasn’t a promise, but a thin lie she’d be able to see through. Yet, she was gracious enough to accept it with an enthusiastic nod.

“Of course!” She wiggled her fingers at him in a wave as he made his way over to the door. “You be careful on those waters now.”

His hand stilled on the doorknob and he heard the way her breath caught in her throat. A hitch that immediately signalled regret. Eddie couldn’t give Kay the peace of mind that she needed whenever he left her post office, shoulders hunched, his hair beaten down by the wind, but he could give her reassurance that he hadn’t taken offence to her words.

Quickly, he plastered a smile onto his face. It hurt his cheeks. Too wide, too forced. “You worry about me too much,” he told her with all the fondness of someone who was used to being worried about, who perhaps revelled in it. Someone who didn’t want to cringe away from the idea of someone else wanting to look out for him. Someone who was a far cry from Eddie Kaspbrak.

As soon as the door closed behind him, the smile dropped.

The sun was dipping closer towards the horizon as he tucked the envelope safely in the inside of his jacket. His eagerness would have him tearing it open straight away, but to his credit, he was more careful than that. He’d waited a week and a half since the last letter, so he could wait another half hour. Maybe less if he picked up the pace and stopped dawdling, his guilt slowing his steps until it felt like he was wading through honey.

Rightfully, he knew that he couldn’t turn back and accept Kay’s offer. He had to go back and get Scout – the part hadn’t been a lie – but maybe he could have made more solid plans. She’d been a real friend to him when he had needed her, and he’d kept her and Marley at arm’s length. The younger girl, Kay’s cousin and her housemate since before Eddie knew them both, had started to view him with a mix of wariness and trepidation when he’d gotten bad. It was a complete contrast to how she usually was with him, attacking him with affection and boundless Labrador-like energy. Slowly, she’d returned to her usual happy-go-lucky demeanour instead of acting like she was walking on eggshells around him, but he would always catch her glancing at him for a second too long, like she was afraid he’d turn back into the surly, ill-tempered man that had darkened the post office doorway a few months ago.

He didn’t want to be that person for them. The two women, along with Beverly and Ben, had been the only people to show him kindness when the rest of the town had turned away from him, ostracising him and showing him the same contempt that he’d have expected if he’d laced the Blackwood’s sugar bowl with arsenic.

In the citizens of York, Maine’s eyes, he might as well have done just that. Perhaps worse.

During this time of year, it was easier for him to avoid their accusatory glares. He could remain in his home, marooned from the mainland, just as he liked it. All he needed to come to town for were the bare necessities: toiletries, occasionally some new hardware equipment, and as much tinned soup as he could buy from the convenience store without the cashier giving him the stink-eye and/or the load capsizing his boat.

And, of course, to get his mail.

Eddie was still a man who shrank into himself, who refused to look people in the eyes lest they find something else incriminating in there to hold him accountable for. He could count on one hand the amount of friends he had in Cape Neddick and, even then, he felt like he only deserved to call them acquaintances for the way he’d treated them since everything turned upside down. But these days, and there was still a prominent part of him that wanted to spit and swear he had no right to, he walked with more of a spring in his step.

‘Spring’, perhaps, wasn’t the right word. But he held his head a little higher. Not out of pride. No, that had long ago been dashed, and he wouldn’t be so bold to ever call it ‘happiness’. But something like hope had arrived on his doorstep the very first time he’d walked into Kay’s post office and been handed an envelope that held a letter of very few words.

_Dear Mr Lighthouse Man,_ it had read. _Can you send me some photographs of birds?_

The return label which had been kindly sent along with it was addressed to a man called Richie Tozier.

Eddie hadn’t known what to make of the request at first. It had briefly occurred to him that there was some sort of error and he’d received someone else’s mail, but then he remembered the greeting. Who else was ‘Mr Lighthouse Man’ around here but Eddie Kaspbrak?

He’d been in the position since he was twenty years old and now, reaching forty, he couldn’t think of anyone else who could possibly be mistaken for him. Other than his father, and the letter’s sender would only be wholly disappointed if Frank Kaspbrak had been the intended recipient. The mere thought had driven a flash of pain into Eddie’s chest and he’d been momentarily tempted to toss the letter into the fireplace.

He didn’t. He’ll always be glad he didn’t.

It had taken him a while to decide he wanted to reply in the first place though. So long, in fact, that Mr Tozier had sent him yet _another_ letter to chase the first. This time the same message had been echoed, prefixed by a very long and potentially-polite-but-overwhelmingly-demanding _pleeeeeeease_ , the e’s looping together to create the most nonsensical string of letters Eddie had ever seen in his life.

The huff of laughter that had left him seemed to solidify in the air of his living room. He lifted his head, startled by his own involuntary display of hilarity. He stared into the middle distance, half expecting a pointed finger to materialise in front of him and scold him for having the audacity to do something as human and light-hearted as _laugh_. He wasn’t allowed to laugh anymore.

Still, Mr Tozier’s second letter had prompted him to pull the drawer in his study open so he could grab his Polaroid camera and head outside. Luckily for ‘Richie’, it was seagull nesting season which meant plenty of photos of the gulls, as well as a quick snap of a cormorant he’d managed to grab when it crested down and settled on the top of his shed.

He’d let the photos develop, declared them satisfactory enough for a perfect stranger and immediately stomped back upstairs to his desk where he sat down and wrote a reply.

_Dear Mr Tozier. I hope these photos meet your very unclear standards. I can’t tell whether or not you are a bird enthusiast, or simply another enquirer about life on this island. Nubble has a touristic following, I know. But I have to assure you I simply can’t adhere to the needs of everyone who has taken an interest in the lighthouse. Please know that this letter from myself (and the enclosed photographs) are a one-off. Kind regards, Edward Kaspbrak._

He’d subsequently eaten his words within a minute and a half of reading Richie Tozier’s reply.

_Dear Eddie Steady Green Lighthouse Go, I gotta be honest with you, dude. I had no idea Nubble Lighthouse was a thing. ‘Nubble’ is what I used to call an outie bellybutton when I was younger, so you can imagine by surprise when I found out it was the name of a freaking lighthouse. And like, a super famous lighthouse if what you and Doctor Google have to say about it._

_Rest assured, I’m not some Nubble fanboy (although never let it be said that I’m not a fan of a good outie), but the bird photos were actually to cheer up my friend, Stan. I’m working on a little project from him and was trying to get photos of birds from all corners of our fine country. And then you went ahead and sent me pictures of some seagulls. Dude, I live in LA! If I wanted to look at some seagulls, I’d just head down to the beach where I live and throw some French fries on the ground._

_When I said that to Patty though – that’s Stan’s wife – she told me to polite and that I hadn’t specified which birds I wanted. I’ll reiterate: she told me I hadn’t specified the birds I wanted!!!!! Like I was the bird nerd and not our dear Staniel. In the end, I was deeply chastened though, so I send you my humblest apologies for my rudeness and, you know, lack of specificity, I guess._

_I sure hope I didn’t bother you up in your big old lighthouse! Thanks for sending the photos! And if you ever get a hankering to send more, hold back on the seagulls and send me a good dog instead._

_Richie Tozier._

He read the letter again, feeling the tell-tale signs of his mouth curling upwards in a reluctant smile. This guy was rude and obnoxious as hell, yet Eddie found himself itching to reply.

There was no logical reasoning behind it. Eddie wasn’t an impulsive guy and since he’d previously likened the task of taking an unnecessary risk to something like sky-diving or bungee-jumping, the thought of replying to the letter from the safety of his house, connected by a short corridor of rattling windows and wood panelling to New England’s most photographed lighthouse, didn’t seem so threatening.

So he’d pulled out a clean sheet of paper and scribbled out a reply to Mr Tozier, folding it around a Polaroid of Scout, as well as one of the seal pups that had been waddling by his boat a few days ago.

Five months later, and he was still writing letters to Mr Tozier, only now he was known simply as Richie, and the effect the letters were having on Eddie were a pleasant surprise to those who knew him. Bev had been the first to comment, but Kay and Marley had been the ones to weasel the truth out of him.

Contrary to what they believed, they weren’t love letters. But he liked to think that his pen-pal of sorts was someone he could call a friend now. He’d never been friends with someone who lived in LA before.

Richie was a comedian. Apparently he had a show on Netflix which Eddie didn’t even have an account for. Marley had told him plenty of times that he could borrow hers, but he felt pretty suspect using it to look up some guy he was writing to that he’d told no one about. Sure, Kay and Marley knew about the letters, but they knew nothing about Richie’s identity. Marley was massively into American sitcoms if the tinned laughter that seemed to constantly stream from her laptop speakers was anything to go by, and Eddie wasn’t sure if he wanted to share Richie with them just yet.

Eventually though, he had caved and Googled Richie. Because apparently his pen pal was famous enough for him to be able to do that.

The images had taken a while to load, as they always did on Eddie’s prehistoric modem. Eddie had been surprised by how impatient he was to see them and so he’d purposefully distracted himself by pouring the largest bowl of cereal he’d ever eaten and furiously chomped his way through it before the pixelated images stopped being so damn blurry and eventually cleared up enough for him to see Richie.

He’d choked on a Cheerio.

With little know-how in the world of comedians, Eddie truly couldn’t say if Richie was any good at his job or not – and if Google Images refused to load at a steady pace for him, then YouTube certainly wasn’t going to play ball. But if the contents of his letters were anything to go by, Richie seemed to be doing alright for himself so Eddie figured he was fairly decent at making people laugh, and that simply wasn’t _fair_.

Eddie decided that Richie shouldn’t be allowed to be funny _and_ good-looking.

He wasn’t usually generous with thoughts like that but there was no denying that the pictures he was looking at, Richie all floppy-haired and bespectacled and loosely gripping a microphone, were having a profound effect on him. He found himself staring at his computer, mouth feeling dry and his heart leaping giddily in his chest up until the dangers of blue light strain finally caught up to him and he turned the monitor off and abruptly pushed himself away from his desk.

So no, his written correspondence with Richie certainly couldn’t be classed as love letters, but he didn’t think it was so wrong of him to think that his friend was easy on the eyes. Richie would probably be flattered if Eddie ever plucked up the courage to say it in one of his letters. It didn’t go any further than that though. There was no plausible way it ever could, and instead of that disappointing Eddie, it was almost like a comfortable safety net.

He knew better than to develop romantic feelings for _anyone_ never mind a guy he’d technically never met on the complete opposite side of the country. Eddie possessed a far greater sense of self-preservation than that.

His eagerness to get home and read Richie’s latest letter was simply born out of a feeling that had first seemed so foreign and unfamiliar to him in a way that threatened to scare the shit out of him: he liked talking to the guy.

Richie was funny. He had a unique way of looking at things. He liked to talk about himself which meant that Eddie got to read page upon page of anecdotes about Richie’s life in LA. He knew all about his friend Stan and his wife, Patty. He’d been bashfully surprised to hear that Richie’s other friend Mike was absolutely fascinated with the concept of Eddie’s life as a lighthouse keeper, and he’d even been put on the mailing list for Mike’s boyfriend’s books. He wasn’t sure if he was necessarily a fan of Bill Denbrough’s grimly macabre work but that wasn’t something you could tactfully let someone know in a letter, so he dutifully read the books that were sent to him and managed to work around telling Richie he thought the endings were absolutely abysmal. Up until Richie had ended one of his own letters with _PS you can totally stop pretending that Bill’s books aren’t hot garbage._

The best part about Richie though is that he got the good side of Eddie. He didn’t have to deal with Eddie’s bad moods or chronic aversion to social interaction. Most importantly, he was probably the only person that knew Eddie and didn’t see him as… Frank Kaspbrak’s son. It was never a title he’d shouldered like a burden until last year, but it still weighed down on his shoulders every day.

Sometimes, he felt guilty. Richie didn’t know who Eddie really was or what he’d done. He didn’t know what he could easily blame him for like everyone else in Cape Neddick. Was Eddie a bad person for keeping that part of himself private?

Sea water sloshed around his boots as he pushed his boat away from the rocks, still mulling this thought over. He’d never thought that he was lying to Richie exactly, but maybe he was compartmentalising all the parts of himself that he thought Richie wouldn’t like. Which was stupid as hell seeing as they were still effectively strangers and yet, for some crazy reason that Eddie couldn’t fathom through the sheer enormity of it all, he sort of craved the other man’s approval.

The muscles in his arms lit up as soon as he pulled his oars inward, rowing backwards across the waves towards the island he lived on. The sun was rapidly setting now and he was glad he’d left the post office when he did. Any later and this would have been a bad idea. It may only take a mere five minutes for him to get from the mainland to his own little jetty on a good day, but that didn’t mean he was going to take any chances.

Not anymore.

The little boat rocked beneath him and he felt the comforting crinkle of Richie’s enveloped jammed between his sweater and his jacket as he rowed closer and closer towards home.

The waves crashed against the side of the boat, menacingly letting him know that summer was well and truly over. Water slopped into the deck and he huffed out another couple of breaths before reaching out a hand and grabbing onto one of the wooden planks of the jetty. He used his grip to pull himself along until his boat sloped out of the sea.

He clambered out and climbed up onto the jetty, wiping the palms of his hands against the front of his jacket. Growing up, never would he have been able to see himself doing something like that. But then again, he could have never in a million years envisioned himself living next to a lighthouse.

The climb from the jetty up to his house was a long one and a steep one, but while he’d bemoaned it as a twenty-something-year-old, he enjoyed it now. It kept his stamina up and ensured that he stayed in shape, the lactic acid in his thighs making sure he keenly felt its presence.

Most nights, he simply hurried over to his porch so he could get inside and see to Scout. But as much as Anne Shirley would delightedly state that she was so glad to live in a world where there were Octobers, there was a small, secret part of Eddie that mourned the loss of summer, if only because the sun disappeared earlier and the clouds rolled in overhead with such a domineering presence that sometimes he would wonder if their stay was going to be permanent. He loved winter for the solace he gave him. After all, it meant he could go outside without fear of tourists snapping a photo of him emerging in his pyjamas to let Scout out for her morning pee. But tonight, he realised he was going to miss the last remnants of September that has dripped into its neighbouring month.

As the sun lay down in the line where the sea began, it painted the sky a sorbet mix of pink and orange and yellow, streaked with light clouds. It cast a soft glow on the mainland where the first evening lights began twinkling on one by one. Families sitting down to dinner, television sets flickering to life, the fairy lights in Marley’s bedroom being turned on as was her usual nightly ritual.

The town of York was slowly coming to life for the night in a chemical yellow haze and all Eddie could do was watch. He couldn’t be a part of it, he knew that, but sometimes he liked to look at it from afar.

Letting his eyes flutter shut, he tipped his head up to where the fading light deigned to meet him for another couple of seconds. He wished he could describe it to Richie, but the few times he’d tried to capture the sunset on his camera, it had looked underwhelming and laclustre and he told himself Richie wouldn’t be impressed.

Part of him wanted to tell Richie what it felt like to be standing on the hill of Nubble’s island, knowing a whole nation stretched out before him. It went on for states and states and would keep going on until it reached Richie’s end of the country. And here Eddie stood, a mere one hundred yards of rocky water in between him and that massive stretch of land, displacing him anyway.

“Enough,” he muttered to himself. “Go inside.”

Eventually, he turned his back on the pinpricks of light staring back at him from the rest of Maine and climbed up his porch steps, sliding his key in the lock and opening up his door.

Immediately there was a clicking sound of paws skittering against the floor and he crouched down to welcome Scout. The border collie bounded up to him, grateful to see him. The sentimental side of him liked to think that it was because she’d missed him, but he was logical enough to know that she associated his mere presence with food and was hankering for dinner.

He popped open a can of wet, meaty lumps, dumping it in her bowl. Running a hand over Scout’s head, he left her to eat and quickly began unbuttoning his jacket. His boots weren’t even fully unlaced by the time he’d tugged them off and dumped them by the kitchen door.

His grip on the envelope was threatening to crease it by the time he reached his living room and sat down in his armchair. It occurred to him that he should put the fire on and warm up the place before the draft from the lighthouse corridor crept through and nipped at his feet through his socks, but he was too anxious to read Richie’s letter.

He tore a strip off the top part of the envelope and pulled the letter out.

_Dear Eduardo Spaghuardo_ , it read, because Richie, upon discovering Eddie’s aversion to nicknames, never failed to address him by one.

_The fact that you have never seen ET only serves to strike fear into my very core. Seriously, never? I guess that means you didn’t have as much of a traumatic childhood as I did then. But if you ever get the chance to watch it, do it. I love that little googly-eyed bitch. He’s great._

_As always, Patty sends her love and Stan sends his best wishes and I told him that he was allowed to send love as well and that you wouldn’t think he was a big massive gay for it. Which he then said he knew fine well. He then told me that if he wasn’t ‘a big massive bisexual’ he would merely send wishes, instead of his best ones. The conversation was very convoluted and it devolved into total nonsense because Stan and I were drunk. I think his tolerance has totally hit rockbottom because he’s only letting himself drink once a month now. But you know what, that’s fair. Like if he went and knocked Patty up so she can’t have pina coladas for nine months, it’s only fair that he share the retribution as well, right?_

_Speaking of, the Stanlets are making Patty huge. She’s such a tiny human being, I don’t know if I mentioned that about her before, but she’s built like a little ballerina and now she’s growing two mini StanPats inside her and they’re making her look like she swallowed a planet. It’s weirdly adorable._

_Mike and I went to the pier the other day because we decided it would be fun to try the slot machines. Anyway, we ate too much chilli cheese dogs that my stomach hurt but it made me wonder if you’ve ever had a chilli cheese dog. Please tell me you have! Eating one is like a total rite of passage. There were also a fuckton of seagulls at the pier and I nearly just tied this letter to one of their legs so I could be like “On you go now! Go see the family in Maine! And stop by my favourite lighthouse keeper if you do and drop this off!” Yes, you read that correctly, Eds. You are indeed my favourite lighthouse keeper. And not just because you’re the only one I know._

_I’m gonna get superbly jealous of you if you tell me it’s nice fall weather where you’re at. We’re still going through a heatwave right now and I’m sweating my balls off every single day. I’m going stir crazy with how hot it is that I can barely sit down and right new material. So instead I just sit down and write to you, which is a lot easier because I know you already don’t think I’m one little bit of funny, so it’s not like I need to impress you, huh? One day, you’re gonna laugh at one of my jokes, Kasprak. You’re gonna laugh so damn hard._

_For real though. I like writing to you. It’s easy. I don’t need to think so much. I just write. I like it._

_Oh shit, I haven’t even mentioned my big news! I finally read To Kill A Mockingbird. You definitely named your pup after the best character. Like Atticus was definitely a good guy and I’d ride him like an Alabama cowboy (is that disrespectful? I dunno, but let’s be real no one’s ever tried to say they didn’t have a crush on Gregory Peck) but Scout was sure as hell the funniest. I really liked the book. Bill wishes he could write something like that. Oh, and I should probably mention, he’s working on a draft of something new and says he’s gonna send it to you because he values your opinion. Think yourself lucky, he doesn’t think my opinion counts for shit! You’re welcome to openly roast him though!_

_So now that I’ve read your favourite book, I really think that it’s high time you watch ET for me. You won’t regret it!_

_Let me know what the weather is like up there! Are you doing anything for Halloween? Please tell me you decorate the lighthouse! Tell that little seal family I said hey! I showed Patty the photo you sent me and she burst into tears. Happy ones!_

_From, Richie_

By the time Eddie finished the letter, the cold weather had forgotten. A comforting warmth had spread through him, stretching right down to his toes. His eyes trailed over the looping handwriting. He could see all the times Richie pressed too hard with his pen like he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say next or if it would be appropriate. Eddie imagined him sitting on a sunlit balcony in Los Angeles, hesitating over making a sex joke about Atticus Finch until that specific spot of paper was blotted with biro ink. Eddie was glad he’d made the joke anyway.

As was custom for him, he reread the letter for a second then a third time, but in case he’d missed anything. The tension left over from his visit to Cape Neddick eased away from his shoulders until he was slumped into his armchair, grinning at the thought of Richie excitedly brandishing a Polaroid of Eddie’s seal pups. Maybe he got greasy thumbprints on it from his chilli cheese dogs, which Eddie had decidedly never had.

He continued to sit there, comfortable in his old tattered armchair for once, until Scout padded over and propped her chin on his knee. He lifted a hand to trail his fingers through the patch of silky fur between her ears.

Her brown eyes darted between him and the letter, although she knew fine well from certain instances before that it was definitely not a chew toy. Eddie smiled at her.

“You ever seen ET, Scout?”

**Author's Note:**

> Next up, we'll be catching a flight to LA to see what's happening on Richie's end! Until then, feel free to come chat to me on twitter: @rxpunzelss


End file.
